I am Emily. My step parents bred show boxers. But I prefer pitbulls. I've just never owned one and my stepmom is to teary to go into a shelter. I'm workin' on her tho. I do have freinds who have pitbull mixes tho, and one freind who's in denial......

^_^ Actually, I kinda have this problem I wanted to ask about, after watching the introduction tape, I dont wish to be murdered if this has already been posted, but here goes.

I have this freind who just adopted a dog from the shelter. THEY say its a boxer-lab mix. I say its a pitbull. Its light brindle, like pits can be. Its only 2 months old though.... THe people at the shelter insisted it was part boxer, but I am unsure. It has a short tail, but it doesnt look cropped. usually if the tail is cropped there's a patch of bare skin on the tip. Also , it has webbed toes. I dont know what that means. It also has no hind dewclaws, but I looked that up and I dont think its significant.......
And, even if I COULD I.D. it as a pitbull, my freind tells me not to tell his mother. I dont think they'd get rid of it, they'd just be terrified all of a sudden.

What should i do and how can I tell if its a pit?????Or is there a way at all???

There is no way to tell for sure that the pup is a pit bull if it is from a shelter. You just have to go with what you know. I adopted a rescue dog(<--see avatar) that I'm pretty sure is all pit, but you can never be 100% sure.

You won't get flamed for such a question, but stick around and you'll learn what a flameworthy question is.

Post pictures....in my opinion, pit mixes tend to display some very important physical pit tendancies. I think most obvious to me has been the placement of the ears. I've been lookin at this for some time now, and there are very few breeds with ear placement like pits. I could be wrong, and I'm sure someone here will tell me I am.

Y'know, you might be right about the ears. I cant really get a ppic up cause its my freinds dog and I dont have a picture.
Its hard to see all his charecteristics though, because he's so young.
truth is, I might never know. Even purebred pis dont always can look like mixes, and it could be a mix of hundreds of breeds for all we know. And really obscure breeds too, like....an Icelanding cattle dog or something....

The one thing that I'm seriously curious about, which could be a major clue, is his tail. I dont think its been cropped, yet its a cropped length. That means it must be a mix between a tail-less dog and a full-tailed dog. But I dont know alot of breeds like that (I know they've bred bobtail boxers in the UK, but I dont see how a dog like that would end up in an american animal shelter)

Our local shelter labels everything a lab mix, unless there is just no way possible it could be a lab. I imagine they think that this is the way to get people to adopt, as the average person probably will not adopt a pit mix. I think that is a horrible mistake, but I won't go into that here. My point is that perhaps your friend's dog was mis-labeled for similar reasons. If they will suddenly have a problem with the dog if they think it might have some pit in it, why not just mind your own business and let them think it's a poodle if they want to?